


Sennultal

by aikisenshi



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Forgotten Realms
Genre: Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aikisenshi/pseuds/aikisenshi
Summary: Sennultal was a guardian of a small, isolated religious community, until one night, she met a visitor in the forest.





	Sennultal

**Author's Note:**

> Character intro/backstory for my D&D Adventurer's League Elf Ranger. Daughter of a character I played long ago in the City of the Spider Queen campaign.

Life is dangerous when you have no patron goddess to protect you, and the followers of a rival deity blame your order for their own patron's disappearance. Yet we have survived, isolated in our temple in the forest, for over one hundred years.

Day after day, night after night, the priestesses, my mother among them, reached out into the void the goddess left behind, hoping beyond hope that they would find her. For if a God is still worshipped, they cannot be completely gone, can they?

At times, there was... something... in the void, a white mask, a snatch of song, but most of the time, silence.

I spent most of my time in the forest, part of a small band of Rangers, protectors of the community, hunters and gatherers.

Some of the rangers would venture to nearby villages to trade for things the forest could not provide, but I rarely did, my too-dark skin draws curious and occasionally fearful looks from strangers. They wonder: is it a trick of the light? A natural variation? Or is that Moon Elf somehow part Drow? Who would make such an unholy union? Or allow it to live if it were birthed?

My mother did. She is Drow, and loved a Moon Elf slave so deeply that it changed her heart. He was sacrificed to Lolth by my grandmother when my mother's love for him, and pregnancy by him, was discovered. His loss drove my mother out of the Underdark, and into the open arms of the goddess who welcomed all Drow into the light.

Thegoddess who was murdered by an artifact of enormous power when I was barely more than a child.

The ones who killed her thought doing so would bring back their own deity, our goddess' dark brother. Or at least, it was vengeance upon the one they blamed for his disappearance. When her death didn't bring him back, his followers turned their anger on us, and suddenly bereft of Her holy magic, we had to defend ourselves from their wrath.

Many of our number died that day. The rest of us escaped to this hidden shrine in the forest. His followers still hunted for us, hence the Rangers' role as protectors, it's not just dangerous beasts out there in the woods.

Over the hundred years since, the shrine was built into a small temple, where we gathered what relics we had. A tiny commune grew up around the temple. A few small houses, a couple animal pens, a work shed for repairing our armor and weapons, not much else.

Time passed, the few humans in our community grew old, died, and were buried, the half-elves are starting to pass, now. Even my mother and the other full elf elders have begun to show the effects of age. A few children have been born over the years, but very few men were among our number to begin with, and even fewer new people have joined our community.

I had long given up on ever feeling our goddess' presence again when the events now known as the Second Sundering shook the world.

It was hard to tell, in our secluded commune, what was happening in the rest of the world, but you could feel it, great changes and upheavals were happening.

One late evening I was on patrol, walking the old familiar route to my next hidden outlook, when I saw a movement among the trees. I ducked behind a bush and readied my bow.

Iheard it before I got a clear look: a song, being sung in a soft beautiful female voice. The song was being sung in an archaic form of Elven, but I had heard renditions of it in modern Elven, Common, and Undercommon. It was one of the songs our goddess taught her followers ages ago, it was a call to come, join the dance under the moonlight, rejoice in freedom and love. I did not recognize the singer's voice, however, and I know the voices of everyone in our commune.

"Well met, sister," I called out in Elven. "Where do you travel from?"

"A very long and difficult journey, little sister." The voice answered, its form a dark shape in the shadows. "But I have finally arrived."

"I am one of the guardians of these woods, might I have your name so I may welcome you?" I asked cautiously, moving out of the bushes, my hands not yet lowering my weapon.

The shape stepped into a patch of moonlight, casting off the shadows like a cloak. The sky had been completely overcast moments before, but now, there was a beam of moonlight.

The light shone down on a tall Elven woman, highlighting her deep obsidian skin with shades of blue. She wore nothing save for her long silvery hair that reached the forest floor.

"M-my Lady of the Moonlight?" I stammered, falling to my knees in astonishment and awe. "Is this... some trick?"

The shimmering cascade of hair rippled as she shook her head. She reached out a shining, delicate hand to help me up. I hesitated, but her beautiful smile reassured me.

I put aside my bow and reached up to take her hand, as our fingers touched, I heard it: the deep, wild, passionate song I had not heard for almost 120 years, the Song of Eilisstraee.

I stumbled, tears beginning to stream from my eyes, and her steady arms caught me. She drew me into an embrace.

Shame came over me. I had doubted, given up on Her, like my mother never had. I mumbled apologies for my lack of faith.

"Shh, little sister, there is nothing to apologize for, there were times I almost lost faith in myself." She responded, wiping the tears from my grey-skinned cheeks.

"I have a mission for you, little sister born of two peoples. First, run to your commune and tell them of my return. They may not believe you, but as they pray tonight, my power will return to them and they will know. Then, prepare for your new life, it begins tonight."

"What do you need of me, my Lady?" I whispered.

"You do not belong here in the shadows, little sister. I need you to be out in the world, helping people where you can, letting them see that a child like you can be conceived in love, and that your two peoples, high elf and dark elf, can indeed love one another."

My longbow appeared in her hands, she held it out to me. "You are the embodiment of my message of hope to not just Drow, but all elvenkind. Now go, little sister, be on your way, and make the world more beautiful by your passing."


End file.
